LFH Overview

Our Approach

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Interpreting Historical Case Studies

We reinterpret relevant historical case studies for today's business world. We use an interdisciplinary approach which provides multiple sources of information from different disciplines that we integrate into multiple layers. We also use different business lenses (management, project management, etc) to refine our view of the past.

Lenses can alter or refine historians’ view of the past. History adopts a scholarly framework and attempts have been made to make history more scientific by posing hypotheses to be proved or rejected. All of these ideas affect the writing of history and can account for the way historians continually revisit periods and events in history using the lens of a particular new ideology. Grattan (2008, pp. 176)

The lenses alter or refine the historians' view of the past and this is why historians continually revisit periods and events. Most importantly they guide research and shape the methods by defining problem areas, content considerations, assembling evidence, and research questions that need to be answered. New insights emerge when examining historical case studies through a business lens.

A business/project management lens helps find information that is of interest to business people. For example, there are thousands of books on the Giza Pyramid, but very few on the project that delivered it. Examining all the historical sources and evidence through a business/project management lens focuses attention on the elements relevant to a project. When a historical project is interpreted through this lens, it can be understood by contemporary business/project managers and it is of significant and meaningful value to contemporary business practice.

Using Lessons from History in Business

Relevance of Lessons from History

Taken from an interview with Ken Low, founder and president of Action Studies Institute.

"Ordinary leaders lead people where they want to go. Great leaders lead people where they ought to go."Ken Low

An abreviated interview.

Quotes Relative to LFH

“Studying history helps you see where you can have an effect. It helps you understand what happened—and what can happen.”

Alan Kantrow (1986, p. 87):

"Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past."

Machiavelli 1469-1527:

"If we always do what we always did then we should not be surprised then we should not be surprised that we always find what we always found."

(Drouin, Muller, Sankran 2013):

"We must study the present in light of the past for the purposes of the future."

Economist John Maynard Keynes writing during the Great Depression:

"History isn’t aimed at prediction, it is about understanding patterns and preparing ourselves to the future."

(Gaddis, 2002):

“We know the future only by the past we project into it. History, in this sense, is all we have.”

(Gaddis, 2002: 3):

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

"To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future."

Plutarch, Greek biographer & moralist (46 AD - 120 AD):

"Many animals have memory but no other creature but man can recall the past at will."

Aristotle:

“The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again”

George Santayana:

"The best of prophets of the future is the past."

Lord Byron:

“We know the future only by the past we project into it. History, in this sense, is all we have.”

(Gaddis, 2002: 3):

"Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times."

Machiavelli 1469-1527:

"This arises from the fact that they are produced by men (sic) who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."

Machiavelli 1469-1527:

"No reputable scholar should ever begin a work without examining what has been done previously; no perceptive consultant should ever begin an assignment without inquiry into the historical basis of the problem at hand;"

Daniel Wren (1987, p. 342):

"No executive should ever embark on an acquisition or merger without a thorough investigation of the historical development of the firm it intends to approach; and no student who hopes to complete a thesis or dissertation should ever omit a review of the literature."

Daniel Wren (1987, p. 342):

"History is full of “repeats.” Whether we have simply collectively forgotten because of the passage of time or whether we see a way to improve on an old idea, when it comes to managing others, most concepts have been tried already—at least once.”

Daniel Wren (1987, p. 342):

"Have we made so little progress because we have ignored the past and spent our time coining new terminology and reinventing the wheel?”.

Daniel Wren (1987, p. 342):

"In a sense while history certainly informs the present, ideas and perspectives of the present may provide alternative explanations and perspectives for understanding the past."

Preble, Hoffman 2012:

“Each lesson [students learning from history] highlights the fact that the past exists in a reciprocal relationship with the present.”

Arthur Bedeian (2004, p. 93):

“Just as the past is seen through the eyes of the present, the present is judged in an unending dialogue with the past.”

Arthur Bedeian (2004, p. 93):

“To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”